Phoenix Song
by Fyrie
Summary: His Dark Materialsverse crossover with Harry Potter to GoF Dumbledore talks to the one creature who knows him better than anyone.


A fire crackled quietly in the deep, gloomy grate. The warm, flickering light cast odd shadows out into the room and onto the man who sat, wearily, in the chair in front of the hearth.

Pattering rain rattled against the tall windows of the room, set high in a tall tower, faces of dozens of his predecessors visible upon the rounded walls, most of them looking as drowsy as the man in the chair.

A silvery beard flowed like a waterfall down his chest, his hands folded over both it and his stomach. He looked like he had fallen into slumber in the chair, his eyes closed, but he was speaking.

"I simply don't understand it," he was saying quietly, though there appeared to be no one present to hear him. "Surely, if his body was destroyed, then that should be the end of it? How is it possible that he can be starting this all over again?"

"It should be finished," a softly-spoken voice murmured from close beside him. "But this world is different and you knew that. That's why we stayed, isn't it? Perhaps he's found a way to bend the rules. After all, you managed to adjust them to suit us."

Blue eyes opened and gazed into the flames. "Nicholas should never have trusted me with that stone," he said sombrely. "And I should have dealt with the boy when he was still young. It would have saved so much time and so many lives."

"You couldn't kill the child," his companion chided gently. "I know you couldn't and you know you couldn't, Albus. You tried and he struck out against you. You did all you could, given the circumstances."

"I should have killed him and left this world."

"You should have, but it's not your nature to give up on people."

"Then why did I stay when I thought he was gone?"

"Because you knew he wasn't. It could never be that easy to be rid of him. You stay because you cared enough for this world to be sure he was gone."

The wizard rose from his chair and there was a brief rustle of fabric. He crossed the stone floor of the room and, behind him, there was the quiet swish of feathers moving on stone.

"I care too much, don't I?" he said quietly, touching one of the elaborate, gleaming instruments that stood on one of the many tables around the room.

There was a trilling laugh. "You say it as if it's a bad thing," his companion replied, the flurry of wings and clatter claws on the back of his chair making him turn. The bright black eyes of the phoenix gazed at him seriously. "You can't blame yourself for what he became. You gave up everything to follow him through that window into this world. You _chose_ to try and save him from himself. You gave him every chance to be something else. He was the one who rejected you at every turn."

Albus Dumbledore reached out and ran a hand over his daemon's head with a sad smile. His daemon knew him better than anyone else in this world, a world he had stumbled into by accident, while pursuing a youth fleeing from their own world.

So few men in their world were gifted with powers as he was, but that boy had been and that boy had been terrified and terrifyingly powerful with it. He had fled from others who were meant to teach him to govern the powers, but no, the boy hadn't wanted that.

When he had been sent after the boy, the man now called Albus Dumbledore had never realised just how long his duty would take him, still carrying on, over half a century later, in a world he had come to know by degrees.

That same world proved pliable to both of them, multiplying their powers beyond even Dumbledore's imagination and now, he had a duty to see his original task done, capturing the boy - now an angry man - and finishing things once and for all.

"It will never stop me regretting matters." One gnarled fingertip gently brushed Fawkes' beak, then lightly tapping the pointed tip. "So many things that I wish had gone undone. I've stolen a life..."

"So did he, but you did it without bloodshed." Fawkes countered. "The man was weak and dying in that bunker when you found him. It wasn't your doing. You tried to save him from that wizard."

Dumbledore slowly nodded. "Grindelwald..." He reached up and touched his nose, ever crooked, then lowered his hand. "His powers were meant to be legendary, but they're nothing compared to our world."

"Which certainly explains how a silly fool like you is regarded as one of the most powerful wizards in this world," Fawkes rolled his eyes expressively, clearly having heard this raging internal debate numerous times before. "Yes, you magically altered your appearance. Yes, you couldn't save the poor Dumbledore chap. Yes, you could have done things differently, but then, everyone could have. Honestly, Albus it's been nearly fifty years. Do we need to hear the existential woes of our continued existence every time little Marvolo and Nagini's shadows emerge again? We knew it would happen again, that he wouldn't be so easily beaten down, especially you, pessimist that you are."

The ageing man sombrely looked at the phoenix. "If it reminds me of our purpose for being here, yes," he said, making his way to his desk and sitting down with bone-creaking slowness. "I feel old, Fawkes."

The phoenix fluttered across the room and landed on the arm of Dumbledore's chair, butting his fiery head against the man's shoulder affectionately. "You _are_ old, Albus," he said gently. "We both are. The only thing that keeps us alive in this world is that stone of yours."

"How does he do it?"

Fawkes cocked his head. "How does who do what now?"

"Stay alive," Albus said, absently stroking his daemon's feathered head, gazing somewhere beyond the walls of the room. "This world ages us more quickly than our own. I have the stone to help me, but what does he have?"

"Sheer stubbornness? And that oh so charming burning desire to kill us both off before he dies? That's quite the motivation." Fawkes replied dryly. "Or maybe, he found something similar. After all, there are hundreds of legends of life-giving rivers and goblets and all kinds of nonsense that are probably true, knowing this strange world." He shook his head gloomily. "They leave all their mystical artefacts lying around where people can find them. Humans can be so foolish when they haven't got daemons to advise them."

Dumbledore chuckled softly, looking at the bird. "How is it possible that you are so wretchedly logical, bird-brain?" he asked fondly, tapping Fawkes on the beak.

"One of us has to be," Fawkes countered, then nipped at the offending finger, though not too harshly. "After all, if he tossed a bag of sweets in front of you, when next you meet, you would be entirely at his mercy."

"I'm not that easily distracted," Albus protested half-heartedly.

"Unless they were lemon drops?"

The old man chuckled and kissed the phoenix softly on the head. "You always manage to make me smile, Fawkes," he murmured. "How is it that you do that?"

"Because I've known you for nearly ninety years, you silly old man," Fawkes said affectionately, clicking his beak. "And because, if all else fails, I can burst into flame and allow you to toast marshmallows?"

"Why do you think I was so happy when you remained in this form?" Albus smiled slightly, shifting his arm to allow his daemon to step graciously down to sit in his lap, one aged hand fondly smoothing the phoenix's feathers.

"And there, I thought you might appreciate the symbolism," Fawkes sighed, shaking his feathery head. "But no, you merely use me as a portable camp fire."

Albus smiled quietly, sadly.

"Come, now, Albus, no more brooding for now," The sharp black beak gently nipped his fingers. "We _will_ finish this, but now, you have to concentrate on keeping the school united."

The wizard nodded again, smoothing the long feathers curling down the bird's neck. "Will you sing, Fawkes?" he asked.

The phoenix chuckled. "I expect that means you have run out of bonbons again, if you wish to hear my squawking?" he teased, dark eyes glinting, butting his head under Albus' hand.

"Indulge an old man." Dumbledore murmured.

"And who will indulge an old daemon?" Fawkes grumbled fondly, though he got laboriously to his clawed feet and lifted his head and, all at once, phoenix song filled the tower.


End file.
